


In Any Universe

by cumberground (thaumatologist), SpaceJackalope



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: College, Cooking, Fluff, Grocery Shopping, M/M, Romance, a variety of eras including, foggy and attempts at foreign language are the real otp, foggy and memes are the real otp, foggy/marci fwb, internet shennanigans, more tags will come with future chapters, nerds dating, no sex but some innuendo, the delight of AU prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-05-28 21:07:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6345187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thaumatologist/pseuds/cumberground, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceJackalope/pseuds/SpaceJackalope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Matt and Foggy fall in love in situations described here: http://onetruepairingideas.tumblr.com/post/141462393317/assorted-weirdly-specific-aus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which There Is Ice Cream

**Author's Note:**

> Written by SpaceJackalope, with initial chat funtimes, suggestions, and beta provided by the eternally wonderful Cumberground.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: “your friend set you up on a blind date and i happened to be eating alone so you thought you were meeting me and you were cute so i went along with it but you just got a text from said friend that theyre sorry your date stood you up and now i have some explaining to do.”

High summer: fry an egg on the sidewalk, no breeze, hold your limbs apart so they don’t stick to each other. In this kind of weather, Metro-General saw a spike in heatstroke and dehydration, and a decrease in, well, _anything_ that might require moving through the—oven, said Shirley; hellscape, said Seong, neither of them having heard what the other said. Claire had been bubbling with the humor of that combination for hours, even as she felt her skin was about to melt off. And wasn’t that Hell’s Kitchen all over? Funny, until it wasn’t. Not, until funny’s your only option.

Tonight was in the second category, in Claire’s book. It wasn’t the hospital. It was Matt Murdock. She cushioned his head with a towel, and folded her arms. Even though this was Matthew I-Can’t-See-That-But-Stop-It Murdock. He was also Matthew I-Think-I’ll-Go-Out-In-My-Body-Armor-Even-Though-It’s-95-Degrees Murdock, and Matthew Why-Don’t-I-Take-On-This-Gang-Of-Medication-Counterfeiters-All-By-Myself-With-Already-Bruised-Ribs Murdock. So now he was lying on her towel-lined sofa in his t-shirt and underwear, nursing a bloody nose, two black eyes (probably), and his worsened ribs. He’d lined up some ice cubes on his stomach, and had another one melting in the hollow of his throat. She watched him fish another one out of the blue hobnail drinking glass on the floor and balance it slowly on his forehead.

“Claire,” he said softly, carefully keeping his head still. “You’re making a face.”

“I don’t _think_ I am.” She stopped. “Shit, yeah, I am.”

He hesitated. “Which one? No, wait, it’s uh, it’s the Why Do You Destroy All My Hard Work Matt Face.”

She snorted a laugh. “Half of it is. The other half is realizing I did something earlier that I didn’t think through.” Matt’s laughter echoed hers.

“We should start a club. Ow. No, don’t get up. It’s just an ow.” Claire levered herself back to her armchair. The fan turned. On the floor above, someone made a strange loud thunking noise, like hitting their own floor. Matt, noticing his friend’s wariness, explained: “Breaking up a bag of ice. Got melted together, can’t do anything with it.”

“Ah.” She hauled herself to her freezer. “Want a popsicle, Matt?”

“Sure. Got any cherry?” She did, along with the pineapple she favored. A short period of quiet, and then Claire stopped fighting herself. It was time to get it over with.

“Matt.” He made a soft noise of acknowledgement. “About that thing I did earlier?”

“Shoot.”

“I set you up with a date.” His eyelids flew open.

“Huh.”

“Yeah.” She was grinning now, her awkwardness evaporated now that she was confronted with his expression: hopeful, shy, off his guard.

“Why’d you do that?” Because they were friends, because she worried, because he was so lonely and so good she felt like screaming, even when she couldn’t think what in her life had led to hanging comfortably with a bleeding vigilante.

“You two. Will be so goddamn cute together.” Truth. “And he wanted a date.” Ok, that was unexpected: he looked outright startled now.

“How’d you realize I like men? I don’t talk about it much.”

She was laughing again, even though she knew that couldn’t possibly be helping. “I have _met_ you, Matt.”

“Well. Ok.” His face settled, shifted into a smile. “Is he cute?”

She snapped her popsicle with her teeth. “If you weren’t injured. And, like, I felt like moving. Then I’d throw a pillow at you.”

He huffed dramatically. “Fine. What’s his name?”

She froze. “Well. Huh. About that—he kinda. I mean. He asked for a. Hmmm.”

Matt pulled the Kleenex out of his nose and threw it at the trashcan. Actually made it, too. “Claire,” he said, all fake-lofty, his dimples coming out. “Claire, is this a _blind date_?”   

~***~

To be specific, it was a blind date at an air-conditioned ice cream shop in a newly-renovated space which called itself Dante’s Ninth. Matt hadn’t been since it was a soul food diner, but he loved it on principle. He loved the fountain it was across from for reasons of sentiment: it was where wee little Matt Murdock had splashed with friends during heatwaves past.

His instructions, via Claire:

  * He’ll be sitting on the side with windows into the street (facing the fountain)
  * He said he’ll have flowers
  * No, really, he said he’ll have flowers because he’s the sweetest
  * Also he’s a saucebox :D
  * Behave, Matt
  * Also, I know your bruises have faded, but you’re still tender, so if it goes amazing, you damn well better tell him to be gentle with you or so help me



 

Matt wasn’t sure about the flowers, but. Well. Nobody had ever given him flowers before, and it made him feel all squishy in his chest and stomach. He focused his senses on Dante’s Ninth well before he reached it, hoping to find his mystery man. He realized first that the shop was packed. Hardly a surprise, even with the heatwave finally starting to abate. His mind started to quiet when he heard a warm, joyful voice saying: “God, I’m sorry, but do you think I could grab this table? It’s only that I need a window on this side because—”

“Gorgeous flowers, man! Don’t worry, I see another one opening up. You can have your romantic fountain view for your date.” This was followed by the man—his date!—gushing over a skateboard the girl (Matt was guessing, and teenagers were even harder to guess than adults) was carrying. Matt’s stomach butterflies stopped pogoing like awkward ravers and started twirling in graceful, if high-speed, pirouettes.

In the handful of minutes between his date settling in and Matt sliding into the shop, no tables indoors were left open. A clerk left the counter to offer him a hand navigating, but Matt shrugged. “I’m meeting someone. Can you point me at a man with flowers anywhere?”

And so, the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen stood over his date’s table, breathed in subtly-scented flowers, and delivered his carefully-concocted greeting: “Hey there. Is this seat taken?” Plus his best grin. And a charming head tilt. Which just so happened to highlight his throat and the part of his clavicle exposed by his v-neck.

Okay, so he was pretty excited about this date. This guy, whatever his name was, was someone Claire seemed to love. If he was being perfectly honest, she’d vagued so enthusiastically and teasingly that Matt definitely had a crush well before he’d left her apartment that night. And now that he could smell him, and feel his warmth, and hear his cute voice? Well.

Happily, he could feel the rush of warmth which accompanied a blush on his date’s face, and hear a grin in his voice as he assured Matt that: “Listen, man, with dimples like that, you can sit anywhere you want. And things other than dimples. I mean. Not to be weird. But you’re a very handsome duck, and it’s extremely hot outside, and you should probably sit down. And I’m going to go buy my ice cream now, and uh. If you want, I can bring you yours?” Matt did want.

“Have they got anything with nuts?”

“They’ve got, uh, maple walnut?”

“That sounds great! Oh, uh, I’m Matt Murdock!” This to his date’s back, which promptly turned.

“Foggy Nelson!” And if that wasn’t the cutest name Matt had ever heard, then he’d eat his cowl.

~***~

“So I was like, ‘I shall call her Moxie Furiosa Nelson’ and Brett was all ‘remind me why I’m letting you adopt this orphan cat?’ and obviously that was a grave injustice—”

“Oh, Moxie Furiosa is definitely in _my_ top three cat names, for sure.”

“ _Thank you_! See, you are clearly a gentleman of taste and discernment.”

~***~

“There was this one time I was on the subway, and there were these two girls next to me with—I kid you not—an actual peacock.”

“ _What?_ Matt, seriously?”

“Seriously! I know the sound they make, and its feathers got all over me, so my roommate Emilio told me they were the real deal. And so, they had this huge bird, and it kept trying to get away from them, and…”

~***~

“See, my mom always wanted me to be a butcher.”

“Really? I can see that.”

“Well, I knew it wasn’t for me. And I still remember exactly what I said to her: I said, ‘Mom, I _could_ get my Damien Hirst on while propagating the food chain we think exists, and also wear a runway-ready striped apron. _Or_ I could _not_ do that.’”

~***~

“And I made a bunch of different stuff. I have zero clue whether they’re even. I dunno. Pretty, or anything. But I like the feel of them, and I like remembering the clay under my hands, and peddling the wheel, and knowing that I made them. I—sorry, I’m rambling.”

“No, no, buddy. Keep going. I feel the same way about knitting—and I _like_ hearing your stories! Keep going.”

“I. Ok. Thanks. I like listening to your voice, too.”

~***~

“You have one new voicemail from: Dr. Feelgood.”

Foggy was laughing, his arm linked through Matt’s as they strolled to the park. “Sounds delightful.”

Matt grinned. “Well, you would know. It’s Claire.”

“I am an expert on charm, it’s true.” He was so goddamn (sorry, Father) adorable. Matt squeezed his arm a little.

“Mind if I find out what she said?”

“Nah, man, go for it.”

~***~

“Hey, Matt, I’m _so_ sorry about Seong! He’s had just the worst day—he had this tabletop fan fall from a cabinet and hit him in the head, so he’s laid up with a concussion. He’ll be fine, though, and he wants to reschedule. Call me back! Bye.”

~***~

“Ok, that made _no_ sense. You know a guy named Seong?”

“Uh, no? Why?”

“Claire was on about him. I think I’ll just call her.”

Foggy faltered. “Uh, Matt?”

Matt held up a finger. “Hey, Claire! Listen, I didn’t follow your message at all. Who’s Seong?” A pause. “Who? Claire, what are you talking about? Foggy and I met up just fine. We’re having such a great time, by the way, _thank you_ , Claire. Foggy! You know? Foggy Nelson? Wait, _what_?”

He brought his mouth away from the phone. “Uh. Foggy? Are you _not_ my blind date?” Foggy forced a laugh back and opened his mouth with measured decorum. “Hush, I’ve already heard every joke twice,” Matt told him sweetly.

“I wasn’t going to! I thought of it, but I was not going to! Don’t laugh at me like that, Matthew, I can’t take you _anywhere_. No, seriously? You thought I was your blind date? You came to Dante’s for a blind date?” Foggy couldn’t stop laughing. “Why did you think it was me?”

“Because you had…um, the clerk said you had flowers and requested a table with a view of the fountain?”

“Because I love the fountain I grew up splashing in during heat waves—”

“What? So did I!”

“Really?” They were both bubbling with delight. “And because these flowers are stunning and my apartment needs brightening up?”

A yelp from Matt’s phone. “Claire’s howling with laughter,” he reported. “Well, Claire, listen, I don’t _want_ to reschedule with Seong?”

~***~

A nice, quiet night. The kind that made Claire glad it was summer: warm, nice breeze, bright moon. Fun, too, because Matt Murdock was on her sofa. Upright! Uninjured! With his sweet Foggy by his side, currently watching in mildly embarrassed delight as Matt leisurely ran his tongue along another cherry popsicle. Claire thought she was showing admirable restraint in not pointing out how much more dramatically this popsicle was vanishing than the last.

“It’s cute, you guys,” she said, gesturing to the pineapple-shaped flowerpot they’d brought. “Like, seriously, ridiculously cute.”

Matt slipped his popsicle away from his lips. “Karen picked it out,” he explained. “On account of…” he trailed off to smirk and shrug. “And Foggy picked the plant.”

She spun away from the coffee table to drape herself in her armchair once again. “Well, you hardly needed a hostess gift.”

Foggy and Matt both laughed. “It’s more,” Matt waved his free hand in a circle. “It’s a ‘thank you for getting me out of my apartment’ gift, I guess?” Which, really. Claire couldn’t be happier that Matt had used his words for once in his life! And been good to himself long enough to let this—this lovely thing he and Foggy were building— _happen_. She told them as much, or at least, the parts that didn’t make her choke up.

As the moment they needed to let their feelings settle subsided, Foggy snapped his fingers. “By the by, what happened to…what was it, Seong? Is his head better?”

Claire gigglesnorted. “Yup. And you’ll never guess who he went out with last night.”

“Karl Urban.” That was Foggy.

“Thurgood Marshall.” Matt, naturally.

Claire smiled. She looked like a cat with cream, and she knew it. “Steve Rogers.” The resulting incredulity was delicious.

“Well, what do you know?” Foggy said, stunned. “We’re both dating superheroes.”

Claire hadn’t realized Foggy knew, but that was good. She was glad Matt was being that open with him. Matt made a strangled noise. Oh—oh, Matt _didn’t_ tell him? She felt cold for a moment, but only a moment.

After all, Foggy gazed steadily at his boyfriend, fond and exasperated, and squeezed his hand. “Matt. Sweetheart, really. I’d know your dimples anywhere.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Claire's planter: https://www.etsy.com/au/listing/265505331/pineapple-pot-ceramic-planter-fruit?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=pineapple&ref=sr_gallery_13&zanpid=2148208009795822592&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=zanox&utm_campaign=au_buyer&utm_content=2205376
> 
> Seong was named somewhat for a character in Griefer Belt: http://grieferbeltcomic.com/


	2. In Which There Is Tweeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And we're back!
> 
> Prompt: “'you were the op on a discourse post getting a lot of hate and i messaged you to make sure you were dealing with the negativity okay' au." 
> 
> I wandered off that path a little, which you can expect me to do again because I am punk rock, whimsical, and distractable.

2.

Foggy had decided, with an imagined bell tone or sword stroke of finality, that this was his least favorite of all assignments he’d gotten so far. Using Twitter? Fine. But having to do so for a grade? Ugh. How could a man be expected to meme in peace with Dr. Turing checking to make sure he was “including content relevant to the material and engaging in discussions,” along with all his classmates judging his taste in local coffee shops? Outright heinous.

Marci poked the sole of his left foot with a dandelion. “Hey. Mission successful. Have you started tweeting yet, Foggy Bear?”

He frowned at the screen of his laptop, closed it, and set it aside to help himself to the pretzels and coffee Marci’s mission for edibles had garnered. He lofted a stirring stick in the air and quoted:

“’Yea, noise? then I’ll be brief.

O happy dagger!

This is thy sheath;

there rust, and let me die.’” 

Marci snorted. “Ok, Juliet. You’ll have to get it over with soon.” She dipped a finger in honey mustard and tapped Foggy’s nose with it. Foggy howled in mock rage and poked her collarbone with his stirring stick. Marci fell back happily onto the picnic blanket.

“O, I am slain!

If thou be merciful,

Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet,” she cried, tugging gently on Foggy’s hand. He flopped beside her.

“Yes ma’am, @QuitStahling.”

She grinned, razor-sharp, and pulled her phone out. “I _knew_ it. Who are you? @FoggyBear?”

“@FoggyhornLeggyhorn, of course.” He extended one leg into the air and pointed his toes. Marci laughed long and hard, and then cut off abruptly to stare at him.

“Foggy. That’s too many characters.” Her fingers tapped. “Wait. _Seriously_? How did you even get it to accept that?” Foggy preened, mimed locking his lips and throwing away the key, and broke off another piece from his pretzel. Marci gave him her dragon-slayer stare, and then tried gently tickling the side of his ribcage, but Foggy did nothing more than gigglesnort coffee onto his t-shirt. Marci strategically withdrew from battle—she never, he knew, retreated.

“Hey, Foggy? Who do you think @VuvuzelaWoolf is? ‘Enjoys French toast, low fantasy, and armadillos.’”

“…And apparently, memes and stream-of-consciousness feminist literature? Gotta be Sahar Cartier.” 

Marci stirred a sugar packet into her cup. “True. Ok, what about @Fluffmeister, ‘I am the ~N!G^H*t~,’ 90% Batman conspiracy theories?”

“Trevor Flint if it’s gotta be a classmate. Bruce Wayne if it doesn’t.” Marci swatted his knee lightly. “What? Bruce Wayne’s vapid billionaire playboy persona is a front. And he’s dating that reporter who he’s always making faces at. Clint Carter? No, that’s not right.”

“Clark Kent,” Marci supplied, all the begrudging interest minable from the depths of her soul on display. Foggy slowly, ever so pointedly, raised an eyebrow.

“See? You do pay attention to this stuff.”

“Nooooo, I pay attention to media figures with track records of dropping bombshell stories, because they can make or break anyone, Foggy. That’s why we’re taking Modern Media & Communication?”

Foggy smiled. “Anywayyyy, you gotta admit that they talk to each other like people who know each other intimately. No, not like that. I mean yes, but no. I mean they could be friends. But if that was all, why the elaborate front? Breaking news: _Daily Planet_ reporter getting his body rocked by Batman. Film at 11. No, seriously, we couldn’t show this during the daytime news. Rated R for two boys kissing. Marci Stahl, put your eyebrows down and let your bisexual bffwf rant about queer hypersexualization for five seconds in peace. Thank you, dear.”

Marci felt generous. She gave him 35 seconds of silence. “Bffwf?”

“Best friends forever, with fucking.”

She smiled serenely. “‘ _You are my sunshine, my only sunshine_.’” Foggy blew her a kiss.

“C’mon, Marci. Hit me again.”

“Uh. Let me look. @RedM&M. No description. Already retweeted a bunch of stuff. #onlyinhellskitchen, #hellskitcheneats, #holyfucksuperheroes, @greatist—that looks like workouts. Lots of sj. Some self-care stuff, all tagged #workingonit. Several music feeds. A Catholic church’s potluck calendar.”

“Hm. What do they like, music-wise?”

“Uh. My Chemical Romance. Fiona Apple. Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Daft Punk. Fitz and the Tantrums. Huh.”

Foggy folded his arms behind his head. “See any pictures?”

“Give up already?”

“No, I don’t mean selfies. Like, pictures of anything.”

“Uh. No.”

Foggy nodded, the last sliver of doubt dissolved. “Matt Murdock.” Marci blinked, stared.

“Murdock is not built enough for these routines.”

“Are you suuuure? Because his clothes aren’t that close-fitting. Believe me, I have paid attention.”

Marci crowed. “Hark! A rival appears on the scene. Well, Foggy Bear, his ass _is_ killer.” She tapped at her screen some more. “Ok, one more and then I’m going to class. @Flowercrouun, 50% current events, 25% motorcycles, 25% cute animals.”

“Jen Walters.”

“…Shit, gotta be. You’re good at this.” Foggy beamed broadly in response.

~***~

There was one other thing about the Twitter assignment that got Foggy’s cheerfully polka-dotted goat. Wait. Was “goat” _really_ a euphemism for “ass,” or was it merely the substitute his mother had requested when a much younger Foggy had come home from school and told his sister he had “kicked ass” on his geography test? Or was that a donkey? She _should_ have said donkey, anyway, from one angle. He ruminated. Although weren’t cows ruminators? Maybe? Clearly, the Nelson family was fuzzy on four-legged animals. Or maybe that was just Foggy. What a good thing he hadn’t agreed to be a butcher.

Where was he?

Ah, yes.

The second problem with Dr. Robin Turing’s Twitter idea was that Foggy had to follow all his classmates. Some of them were fun. Marci, of course. Lena, Nicos, Jesse, Fakhteh, and the rest of his friends. But of course he’d have fun seeing them in his feed. They were his, y’know. Friends. Plenty of people were filling his feed with boring things, though. It wasn’t that they were boring people. Foggy didn’t think he’d met a boring person in his life. But that didn’t mean he was interested in the same things. He didn’t want to read about Sam’s intense diet opinions, or Noomi’s endless vacillation about string theory.

There were some unanticipated bright spots, though. Like Matt.

@RedM&M was funny and insightful—though he also had one hell of a temper. Heh. Hell. The man belonged to Hell’s Kitchen as much as Foggy did, and showed its mark just as clearly. The big difference between them being that Foggy threw himself into making things gentler and softer; peaceful. That was how he made things good—or better, at least. Matt worked differently: he shouted and screamed, even if he wasn’t raising his voice, or using it at all in a literal sense. He tried to heal the world by confronting it. He was like that in class, too, but it struck Foggy _much_ more forcefully on Matt’s Twitter feed. There he was swearier, more irreverent, and less conventional. Maybe he liked the anonymity. He’d hardly be the only one. That thought always knocked Foggy back to 2002-2005, when a young GoldilocksFromHell had been out to friends on LiveJournal, and nobody else.

So maybe Foggy was getting a little sentimental. Yeah, ok, he had a crush. Raise the white flag. Adieu to the notion that he just liked Murdock’s looks. That shouldn’t have been a problem—he and Marci were neither exclusive nor committed in a way that precluded dating someone else. Hell, he and Marci weren’t even dating each other. It was just that Foggy had flirted almost ( _almost,_ he repeated forcefully) embarrassingly with Matt when first introduced to him at some party right after move-in, when it was still late summer and not early fall. Matt had been flustered and friendly, but very firmly and obviously pretended not to recognize it as flirting. Because “you’re really _really_ gorgeous” was so very platonic and heterosexual. They were friends now, sort of. Acquaintances. They liked each other, but @RedM &M had taught Foggy just how little he knew Matt.

And that just would not _do_.

Ok, sure, Foggy had a crush on Matt, but he’d always found friendship to be the best cure for that. He slipped easily between crushes and friendship—and vice versa. Well. Maybe “naturally.” “Easily” was a stretch. His heart still ached a little sometimes over a friend he’d grown up next-door to, even though he’d recognized since 10th grade that ze was one of those rare people to actually have met the love of hir life in high school—and that person was the boy Foggy shared a locker with. Whom he’d also had a crush on at one point. Ok, that guy was a much better illustration of his point: he only ever had crushes on people he liked especially well, which meant he’d always found cultivating friendships with them just as satisfying.

Foggy whumped himself with his pillow. The! Point! Was! He thought Matt was marvelous; he wanted to be friends.

So, because Foggy was as straightforward (biforward?) as the sun was hot, he caught Matt on the sidewalk one day when he and Fakhteh were on their way to get cheese, sausage, carrots, peppers for homemade (dormmade?) pasta sauce, and a tub of ice cream, and told him cheerfully: “Matt! Come to the grocery store with us! And to eat the resulting lasagna. One, both, or neither, but you’re invited, buddy.” Matt started and laughed. There was a moment when Foggy was sure he was about to politely refuse, but then Matt closed his mouth, smiled widely, and fell into step with them.

That was all it took, as it turned out.

Matt asked to borrow Foggy’s arm when they reached the store and found it crowded, so they linked up while Fakhteh pushed the cart, and the three of them spent the whole errand wisecracking and giggling. Matt found them, as if by some sort of magic trick, what would later turn out to be the most flavorful produce Foggy had eaten, short of a handful of times visiting an aunt’s farm, when he had taken food straight from plant or earth to the kitchen or his waiting mouth. And when some asshole in the dairy section got vocal about 1) Fakhteh being a brown-skinned woman with a “respect existence or expect resistance” patch on her jacket and 2) the rainbow Foggy had painted across his fingernails the night before, Matt flipped the guy his middle finger and carried on with his courtroom-style argument for the superiority of cherry ice cream. Aforementioned grocery asshole loudly and scarily objected to being ignored, to the point that he grabbed Fakhteh’s upper arm. Matt kicked him—hard—in the shin, gave their cart a small running start, and rode it triumphantly away. The asshole clutched his leg, yelling. Two little old ladies picking out eggs further down the aisle cheered. Fakhteh sprinted after Matt to save the pyramid of Nilla Wafers he was headed towards. Foggy grabbed two cartons of cherry ice cream, nodded pleasantly at the ladies, and strode after his friends. Possibly someone who worked in the store came to investigate, but if so, the egg ladies lied for them. They made it through the check-out without further incident, and ran to the end of the block like they’d robbed a bank, just in case.

It was the best grocery errand ever.

Matt did come to dinner, which featured twelve college students in a common area moaning with orgasmic tones over ancestral comfort food. Marci kept wiggling her eyebrows at Foggy. He drank his pink lemonade with Great Dignity. Matt chatted and smiled and enjoyed himself, even though Foggy had known since the party they’d met at that social events wore him out some.

It didn’t, to Foggy’s relief, end there. Matt became a regular at OFIW (Oh Fuck It’s Wednesday) dinner. He started doing things with the OFIW friend group outside of it, too. He and Foggy became study partners—they _were_ taking a lot of the same classes, future defense lawyers that they were. They went grocery shopping some more, and hung out. Josie’s became Their Place: it was somewhere they’d been aware of as kids, filled with other Hell’s Kids (and Grown-ass Adults), and felt like going home and going out at the same time.

Foggy thought they’d become friends after that first grocery trip. As Fakhteh said: “‘There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them.’” Good old JK. But he didn’t realize they’d rounded a serious corner until a night in December when Matt had a rare night of reaching his (extremely high) limit for overworking himself. He rescued them both from a session of mad confusion-spiraling exam prep to drink at Josie’s. Foggy had gratefully peeled himself off the floor and embraced the night out. After two rounds he found himself doodling the sign of their future firm on a napkin. No, it was after that, when Matt said “it sounds like we’re getting married.”

Foggy leaned his face in. “Hey. Matty?” They were both drunk, giggly, and soft-feeling on the inside. Matt “mmm”ed quietly, curiously. “Can I—no. May I kiss you?” Matt’s eyes fluttered a few times while he thought about it. Foggy suddenly realized what he’d said. Which. Guess what they say about alcohol and verbal filters is true? Damnfuckit.

Matt put his hand in Foggy’s. “Um. I want to kiss you, but. Can I ask you some things?” Foggy squeezed his hand and wondered whether Matt could hear how loud his heartbeat was.

“Of course, buddy. Anything you need.”

Matt shifted to rest his head on Foggy’s shoulder. “When you say you want to kiss me, what does that _mean_?”

Foggy stared at him. “Dude. I’ve been telling you how handsome you are since we _met_. I want to date you. And if you want to date me, I assure you Marci and I get along just as well when we’re not sleeping together. And she’s been cheering us on for weeks. So there’s no barrier there.”

“Ok. That’s good. I do. Want to. Date you.” Foggy stroked the back of Matt’s hand with his thumb. He was glad, but he wasn’t entirely sure Matt wasn’t just drunker than he’d thought.

“Matty, you’ve never given me any sign of that before. Are you—are you reasonably clearheaded and also not fucking with me for some reason?”

Matt shook his head vehemently and said, all in a rush like a dam breaking: “What? No. I’ve wanted to date you for a while. That’s why I agreed when you and Fakhteh invited me to the grocery store that one time. I’ve been crushing on you since you flirted me at that kegster, even though I didn’t know what to do with it at the time.”

Matt was so cute sometimes, Foggy didn’t know how to handle it. “And,” Matt continued, “you’ve answered all _my_ questions now, including the one about how sober you are at the moment. So, if you’re ready:” he nudged Foggy’s cheek with his nose. “Hi.” Foggy cupped Matt’s cheek with one hand and kissed him.

~***~

Daredevil appeared in March.

There was a child who was kidnapped. She showed up wrapped in a warm blanket with a cup of hot chocolate in the lobby of a police station at exactly 12:05 AM. Brett Mahoney had been working the front desk alone for a few minutes while another officer went to make coffee. During that interval, he was distracted briefly by an email Foggy had sent with the subject line “HAPP BIRTH HAVE GIFT.” Enclosed was a link to a Youtube video of a stirring rendition of “Pants on the Ground” Foggy had performed with Lena and Nicos. Foggy had played his ukulele, and it was impossible to look away from. Although Brett would never admit it, it was also possible that he had teared up briefly at the gesture. Foggy’s boyfriend would later tell him gleefully that Foggy had planned it for weeks.

The distraction was more than enough for the man in the mask. When Brett looked up, the girl was there and her kidnappers were tied up on the steps outside. She told Brett that she’d been saved by The Dread Pirate Roberts. The police thought that was cute, until the kidnappers gave their descriptions.

Then the same man was reported saving people ten more times before April Fool’s. One time he shut down a serial killer who told the NYPD that the masked man was sent by the devil to stay him in his holy mission. It was some sort of bigoted shit. Brett tuned him out pretty quickly, since someone else was writing the words down. But anyway, the police started calling him “the devil’s warrior” during that case, and then later “the devil.” The papers picked it up. @holyfucksuperheroes was very excited, and quickly turned the moniker into “Daredevil.”

Foggy was unusually stressed that month, and didn’t pay a lot of attention to the news. It was a new semester, so he’d long since stopped needing to keep up with it for Dr. Turing—and he’d pruned his Twitter feed. He was most worried because his boyfriend, who had always been susceptible to mystery bruises—little tiny ones on his thigh or bicep, where he’d bumped into something—had gotten a lot worse. Matt insisted that it was just that the school year was catching up with him, that he always got clumsier in the spring. Foggy sort of believed him, but he couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that something was _off_. He cuddled Matt more to make up for it, stroking his back and murmuring sweet things.

He tried to convince himself that Matt would tell him if someone was hurting him.

He knew he could count on his fingers the times Matt had opened up about the bad shit in his life. He might only need one hand to do it.

Sometime in early April, Foggy tried to get Matt to go out with him, or just hang out, and Matt dodged, pleading papers that needed writing. Foggy asked if they could work together, even just sitting in the same room. They’d done it plenty of times before, and Matt _liked_ it. Yet Murdock refused him gently, and sent him off with a swift kiss. Matt avoided Foggy for the rest of the week. They barely spoke to each other, and Foggy died a little. Foggy went to Marci.

~***~

“…So I don’t think he wants to break up or anything, but he’s never done this before, and I’m kinda scared. If it wasn’t for the mystery bruises, I’d let it go. But now I think something’s wrong, but he says nothing is—with every single one of his “something’s wrong!!!!” body language tells out to play—and I don’t know how to _help_.”

Marci stared sadly and stroked his hair briefly. “Oh, Foggy Bear. I don’t know if you can, if he won’t let you.”

Foggy wrapped his arms around his legs. Marci pulled a carton of fudge caramel ripple out of her mini-fridge.

Forty minutes later, Marci got her phone out to look for the takeout menu of the nearest Chinese place and got a little distracted. “Oh shit. Foggy, when was the last time you looked at Matt’s Twitter?” Foggy shrugged.

“I’ve barely looked at Twitter since. God. Sometime in March? I’ve been too busy to meme.” She handed the phone over without a word.

~***~

@RedM&M, March 5th: tfw you want to tell somebody something, but you can’t without explaining something else and can’t decide whether silence is better or worse

@RedM&M, March 5th: fuck it, I’ll just take care of it myself. If I die or something, tell @FoggyhornLeggyhorn I love him lol

@VuvuzelaWoolf, March 6th: @RedM&M Did u die?

@RedM&M, March 6th: @VuvuzelaWoolf Haha nyope. Peace of cake, shouldn’t have worried.

(Here Foggy took a moment to bless the creator of voice-recognition software. “Peace of cake.” He loved it.)

@RedM&M, retweeted from @holyfucksuperheroes, March 20th: “Devil” of Hell’s Kitchen saves 3 from organ harvesters. Tipster: he turned out the lights before attacking. More like DAREdevil amiright?

@RedM&M, March 20th: I don’t know how I feel about vigilante nicknames. It always seems to turn them into pop idols or monsters.

@RedM&M, March 20th: Seriously, even superpowers don’t mean somebody isn’t human.

@Fluffmeister, March 20th: @RedM&M U KNOW NOT ALL SUPERS ARE FROM EARTH, RIGHT? #kindabigoted

@RedM&M, March 20th: @Fluffmeister No, of course I’m not dissing aliens. I’m talking about Daredevil or whomever.

Foggy found the feed harder and harder to read after that. Matt kept talking about superheroes, vigilantes, and so on. He didn’t seem to be able to make up his mind whether vigilantes were justified, whether they did more harm than good, whether government-sanctioned superheroes were any better—whether they were any _different_. It was good stuff, interesting and complicated. The bad part was the absolute firestorm that seemed to have landed on Matt. He seemed to have offended people with every distinct opinion possible—and also garnered support from diverse corners. His feed turned into “Matt retweets other people’s opinions” for a few days, and then stopped right before he’d gone distant from Foggy:

@RedM&M retweeted from @Fluffmeister, April 5th: YOU POS, I KNOW WHO U ARE. UR DEAD!!!

@RedM&M, April 5th: Lmao, that’s sounding more appealing all the time. See you folks later, maybe.

~***~

“Matt? If you’re in there, _please_ open the door.” Matt was, and he did. Foggy wrapped him in a hug, and Matt cringed. “Oh shit. Shit, you’re _hurt_ , aren’t you? What _happened_ , Matt? Why won’t you let me help you? I don’t know what you’ve gotten mixed up in, but I love you and I can’t stand this.” Matt did a worryingly stubborn thing with his jaw, and Foggy sighed heavily. “Please. Please, Matty.” His voice was breaking, and Matt reached out to take his hands.

“Come in. I’ll—we’ll talk.”

Once they were settled on Matt’s bed in his tiny single dorm and Foggy had dried his face off, they tried. Foggy stroked Matt’s hair. “Ok. Are you willing to tell me who hurt you?”

Matt was quiet a very long time, and then: “Luxembourgian mob.”

“There’s a Luxembourgian mob? What the fuck? No, wait, I did that in the wrong order. Why the fuck did they hurt you?”

“I…kinda stole their supply of anthrax.”

Foggy exhaled slowly and tipped his forehead to Matt’s. “ _Matthew_.”

“I’m Daredevil, too.”

“I’d worked that out for myself, funny enough.”

Matt shifted painfully. “When?”

“Guessed it when you came to cuddle with a bruise the size of a pomegranate on your thigh and a smile on your face, while the news was reporting he’d busted somebody terrorizing a Planned Parenthood. Knew it when I caught up on your Twitter feed a few minutes ago.”

Matt touched his fingertips to Foggy’s kneecaps. “Are we ok?”

Foggy sighed and rubbed Matt’s back. “Mostly. We need to talk about this, but yeah. Mostly, because I love you and I trust you—and I think at this point I know you really well. So I have a hard time imagining that you’ll say anything that’ll shock me. Matt, please please tell me I can still trust you.”

Matt carefully gathered Foggy into his arms. “I hope so.” That made Foggy feel better than an unequivocal “yes.” It told him Matt wanted to try, and that he was making an effort to check himself. “I’ll tell you everything.”

He did.

Much later, they were stretched out under the covers, arranged so that they could cuddle without hurting Matt’s ribs too much. “Foggy, I’m so sorry I’ve been avoiding you. I thought I could wait until you could hold me without noticing, but this week has been awful.”

“Mmmm. I thought it was, too.” There was a pause for kissing, and then they stilled. “Oh, Matt? Is Hottie McBurnerphone the same Claire who you said helped you with Twitter?”

Matt nodded against Foggy’s shoulder. “Yes. We were friends for a while before I started letting the devil out. Met when we were the only customers at a Dairy Queen at 4 am in undergrad. Iron Man chased MODOK into it while we were there. Claire and I bonded.”

“Oh my _god_ , Matty. That’s hilarious. Did Iron Man sign your paper napkins?” Matt only laughed. “Also, I meant to ask earlier, but then we got distracted by DD talk. Listen, do we need to do anything about Trevor?”

“Trevor? Trevor Flint? Why, what did he do?”

“Oh! He’s @Fluffmeister. The guy who said he knew who @RedM&M is?”

A long pause. Matt looked flummoxed. “Who’s @RedM&M?”

Ok, that made _no_ sense. “You are?” Foggy described his Twitter to him, while Matt propped himself onto his elbow.

“Claire named my Twitter _@RedM &M_? What the hell?” Foggy couldn’t stop laughing. “Why _Red_? I wasn’t even a devil yet, unless you asked Grandma, may she rest in peace.” Foggy dismissed Trevor as a problem for another day and coaxed Matt gently down again.

“Red is _your_ color, my darling dear. Your hair’s a little red. Your glasses are red. Your lips are red.” He kissed Matt’s forehead, his eyelids; his mouth. “I want you to get some armor, ok? And if that’s red too, well. I’ll still want to kiss you everywhere. Be good, be careful, be mine. That’s all I need from you.”

They kissed once more and fell asleep listening to each other’s heartbeats. And that, Foggy supposed later, made that damn Twitter assignment well worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The dialogue Foggy and Marci quote at each other during their picnic is from Romeo and Juliet, by Billy Shakes. They're quoting Juliet and Paris, respectively. 
> 
> Fakhteh quotes Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, by JK Rowling, on friendship.
> 
> Most names of students were made up or borrowed from friends of ours, but Jen Walters is She-Hulk.
> 
> The majority of usernames were chosen to suit characters, and I did not check to see whether anyone is using them. If you have any concerns or objections, please say! 
> 
> @greatist, however, is a real Twitter. They are Cumberground's go-to fitness site--and her taste is magnificent!
> 
> We love Elden Henson's nail polish so much. <3
> 
> And Marvel and DC are hella fun together, so heyyyy.
> 
> *Blows kiss to you all*


	3. In Which Food Is Made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "'i accidentally added you instead of my friend on skype but you thought i was a bot because i made my account back when ‘xXKittyHoneyXx’ was a cool name' au"
> 
> Featuring food!

“Matt, a Skype interview is not weird.” Karen clucked her tongue at his answering frown and pushed further: “I’ll help you! Navigating Skype sucks a bit even for sighted people. I Skype my folks in Vermont three nights a week, though. I know the drill, and _I will help you_. You like the sound of this firm, you’ve said yourself that L and Z are slowly killing you, and the fact that these guys want an interview like this is a _good_ thing. Can you imagine being so interested in a hire that you didn’t want to wait to get back from Munich?” Matt opened his mouth, but his friend/favorite barista abruptly thunked her tray of mugs onto a stretch of counter, with an urgent cry of “Matt! If you get this job and jetset to Munich, will you tell your clients that The Holy Roast sells a damn good cup of coffee? I need a) better tippers and b) to charm my way into a luxurious secretarial position. Please and thank you.”

Matt leaned his forearms on the smooth marble counter and grinned. “If I get this job, maybe you can be _my_ highly-compensated PA. Also yes, I will tell them.” Ok, then. His knee-jerk reaction of surprise and subsequently suspicion was unfounded, per Karen. He was admittedly growing paranoid. He drew himself up and added, “I’d be grateful for your help with Skype, Karen. Thank you.”

Karen moved closer with decisive footsteps and ordered: “Matt, hold out your hand for a high-five.” He obeyed, and she smacked her hand into his. “Brave man. I’ll swing by your place after dinner, okay? We’ll get you started.”

Matt grinned. “I’ll feed you dinner. Bring your laptop so we can call each other while sitting on the same couch, ok?”

~***~

Matt could backflip from a third-story balcony to interrupt an arms deal, and still look respectable at mass in the morning. All he needed was a pick-me-up at the coffee shop next to the church. He could also hear Karen enter his building and climb the stairs, and could smell her shampoo through his front door. He could not, however, sit still and wait for help when he could start on his own. So when Karen stepped over the threshold, his first words to her were “Hi, Karen!”—but his next were “I’ve been downloading JAWS scripts.” Karen, who was fumbling with her coat, laptop case, and grocery bag, turned towards him in puzzlement as he stretched his arms out to offer help.  

“Good for you? Were you feeling a need for a bigger boat?”

“What?”

“ _What_?”

“Oh! Not _Jaws_ —JAWS. It’s a screenreader. It means I know what everything says, and can use links. That sort of thing. I Googled around and found scripts that are good for Skype.”

Beside him, Karen went still. “Oh.” Matt tilted his head questioningly. He felt heat come into her cheeks. “I—I made some bad assumptions. I mean, what I said was true—I was glad a friend helped me do a trial call, and stuff like that. I just didn’t really stop to think about how you use the internet already.” Matt poked her lightly in the arm.

“Now you know. Come on. I made chicken pot pie. It’s almost ready to come out of the oven, and you’re freezing.” He hesitated, and tacked on a disclaimer. “I expect.” His friend didn’t seem to notice, descending on the kitchen and inhaling deeply.

An hour later the two of them were tucked up on opposite ends of Matt’s couch laughing because “I can seeeee you, Matt!”

“Wow. Mine must not be working, ‘cause I can’t see _anything_.”

“…I am giving you such a look right now. Stop smirking and pass me the ice cream.”

~***~

The interview was—unsettling. Not that it didn’t go well, as an _interview_. Vanessa Marianna, Esq. seemed to like him as a candidate. He learned a lot about the firm, and thought it was an exciting-sounding prospect. He was pretty sure the whole Skype setup had worked fine. It was just. Well. Were there _any_ law firms in New York that he didn’t feel like KOing and leaving in an alley for the police?

Or was he just…imagining things? Looking for something to be wrong? Something Claire said echoed around his brain: “If you spend all your time running into the shadows, you start looking for new ones!” That was after he’d sliced his hand badly investigating a smuggling operation which had turned out to be nothing but out-of-state cigarettes destined for a quiet, if technically illegal, resale and profit. That’d teach him to think twice before punching a van window.

Was this the same kind of situation? Or did that guy—Wesley—really mean the _mob_ and _explosive_ when he whispered, oh-so very softly, into Ms. Marianna’s ear, that “our friends with the mob downstairs are willing to cooperate on the explosive issue, but they insist on speaking to you first”? 

So when Karen asked, and especially when Claire did, he would take the route he hoped was true. “It was great!”

Toxic waste! Try it today for overactive hearing and uneasy nerves!

~***~

Right, then. Tune out the world. Let your head settle. Pushups’ll do the trick. Become nothing but muscle, sinew, and motion. For a little while. All you need. Bent toes, straight back, arms holding you. Chin towards the rug, and now away. One. Down. Up. Five. Loudly singing teenagers two floors down. Ten. Rhubarb pie baking in Fran’s oven. Twenty. Thirty. Forty. Fifty. “Ping!”

That was Matt’s laptop. Um. What?

He folded himself into a sitting position, and then hauled himself up and over to the counter, where he fiddled briefly. “One new contact request!”  From whom, exactly? Why, from “xXKittyHoneyXx,” naturally. A bot. Just _great_. He swept the screen with his cursor. “Deny—Accept.” He swung the cursor back, and clicked. “Contact accepted!” Uh. No. More fiddling. Where was the option to delete, and why was it so hard to find? “One new IM from xXKittyHoneyXx!”

Ok, so. He was stuck with them as a contact until Karen could loan him a hand—probably Sunday. And if any man on the planet was lacking in curiosity, he was not Matthew Murdock. So fuck it. Why not read the thing? It might be interesting, or someone he actually knew on a tip from Karen, or…“Hey there studmuffin! Hit me up if you want some fresh hot crumpets winky face.” Matt rolled his eyes. Or a sexbot. Just delightful.

~***~

Foggy Nelson was not the sort to back away from an opportunity to wiggle a smile out of anybody. He couldn’t help it. He was just a nurturing, joyful, peace-loving sort. He snatched up his spatula and crooned into it.

_Cuz I’m a man, ooh baby I’m a man_

_Peace lovin’ man_

_Baby I’m just a man_

_Peace lovin’ man_

And that was how he came to be standing over his laptop, swiveling his hips dramatically, as he searched for Marci’s handle on Skype. Sure, he’d written it down on the grocery receipt he subsequently dropped in a puddle, but who cared? Still totally legible. Right, then, there she was: MMurdock. Like an H.G. Wells character, or alien, or something. Classic horror was a shared love of theirs, but he hadn’t read Wells in a long time. She’d been pushing him to refresh his memory, but he didn’t. Yet? Ever? Time would tell. Right, then. Send off an invite to share the doubtlessly delicious crumpets he was baking, add an emoji, and voila. A little cheer.

She didn’t respond, which was fine. He ate crumpets hot from the oven with butter and orange marmalade, and took some to share with the office in the morning. Jeri looked more delighted after a bite of Nutella-slathered crumpet than most people did after winning the Super Bowl. A new specialty a la Foggy.

But then Marci didn’t respond to his offers of ricotta pie (“Baby! I got cheese goodness in tart-shaped perfection, want some?”), carbonara tortellini (“Meat + cream + green peas + me + you?”), or pumpkin bread (“I’ve got hot sweet pumpkin to share!”). This could only mean…something. “Marci, my lass, can it be you magically learned to cook since we last spoke? Or did you decide restaurant food at every meal was your best option after all? xoxo”

That got his first response yet. And what did the lovely Marci say? “Are you just a really _sneaky_ sexbot, then?” And the eyebrows go up.

“Lambkin, you know I adore you, but rebound sex is pretty sucky.” He paused. “As in frustrating, not as in ~ooooh~”

“Fuck. That sent?”

“You bet your boots. Hang on, I’m calling you so we can talk. You’re worrying me.” Within moments, the call was through and—“Woah! Hey, lovely, _you_ are not Marci Stahl.”

“Wait, is this transmitting?”

“Yup! Hello, you’re live with Foggy Nelson. Did you hack my bestie’s account, or what?”

Mystery Dude looked indignant. “This is _my_ account.”

Oh. Welp. That ink _was_ kinda blurry. “Thaaaaat would explain why she’s not answering me, then. Wait. Dude. Why did you think I was a sexbot? Or do you begin all your conversations this way? I know I look hot as fuck in my avatar, but I will have you know that I am not so easily seduced that such a pick-up line would work. Gotta at _least_ buy me dinner first, bruh.” Was he flirting? He was kinda flirting. Nothing says “totally compatible” like “we accidentally became Skype contacts and also you’re handsome.” YO-fucking-LO.

Mystery Dude’s forehead puckered. “Because you call yourself xXKittyHoneyXx and send me come-ons?”

Excusez-fuckboy, as the French say. “Ok,” Foggy said, assertively raising a finger. “One, this handle was the very Empire-State-King-Kong-With-Fay-Wray _height_ of style when I claimed it way back in 2006.” Mystery Dude’s mouth quirked at the corners, but he still didn’t seem to be meeting Foggy’s eyes—hadn’t the whole conversation. Wait, was he blind? “Two, I have never. In my life.” He waved his hand emphatically, and noted that the other man’s eyes did not follow it.

This earned him a snort, expressive eyebrow, jolt, and lifted chin. “You send me nothing but messages about,”—he lowered his voice into a comic exaggerated purr—“meat, cream, sugar, baby, oooooh.”

“Sweet nutty butter cookies, man! How did you misconstrue my intentions _that badly_?”

The other guy was laughing now. “Because you say things like _nutty butter cookies_ with no context? What did you think you were talking about?” There was the most microscopic of pauses, and then: “Oh my God, have you been sending me invitations to share food all this time?”

Foggy touched one hand to his clavicle. “Sir! I have been sending Ms. Marci Stahl offers of homemade food to comfort her in her time of breakup. Though I guess I misread her handle. And therefore mistyped said handle.” Oh! Ohhhh, Morlock. From _War of the Worlds_. Wow, that ink really bled. “But sometimes things work out?” He paused and sipped his root beer seductively. “I’m making cashew chicken. You doing anything, handsome?” Oh, A+, Foggy. Just ever so sensible and suave. Winning at life decisions. Lucky thing that Mr. Perfect Stubble couldn’t see him cringing.

“As it happens,” MMurdock drawled, “I’m picking out what to cook for my own dinner. What’s your recipe involve?” So of course Foggy launched into a conversation about cooking. A full hour later, once they had—only just!—disconnected, Foggy burst into private laughter. He had a Skype cooking buddy now, or something. And his name was Matt.

~***~

“Ok, Matty, give me a peak at the pan.” Matt moved his phone obediently. “Tilt the top edge towards you a little. Oh, there we go! That looks gorgeous. All bubbly and caramelized.” Foggy hummed and kissed his fingers. “Mamma mia, that’s some good-looking veggies!” Matt laughed—Foggy had grown very happily accustomed to his laugh in the past few weeks—and, out of frame, took a meat thermometer out of a drawer. “One hundred and seventy degrees,” it chirped. “Aw yisss, perfect,” Foggy cooed. His view changed rapidly to the underside of one of Matt’s cabinets while the food was taken off the stove.

“Thanks again, Foggy. Invaluable as always.”

“Hey, man, long-distance sous chef is now my numbero una back-up dream job. Put it on my resume. Also do not underestimate the degree to which you are secretly my guinea pig, ok, dollface?”

A satisfying, if choked-off, giggle and a valiant effort at a deadpan comeback: “There we go. The solution to all our respective problems. We shall run away and become cooking sensations. _My Blind Kitchen with Matt Murdock_.”

“Dude, you’re my forever boy, but you ain’t got nothing on Hannah Hart. Aw, c’mon. Noooooo! Not the puppy eyes! Not the signature Murdock pout! I am weak!”

Matt, still out of frame, sounded demurely smug. “ _Foggy and Matt in: Hell’s Kitchen_. We’ll inspire millions.” That was funny. Foggy didn’t remember telling him where he lived.

“Of dollars to leap into our pockets! Matthew, you genius.”

Matt came back into view. “Hey, next week, can we try baked mac and cheese? I can do stovetop, but I’ve never tried making baked.”

Foggy cracked an egg in his own kitchen, pouring it into his frittata base. “How’s that? It’s kinda classic.”

Another laugh—but oh, this was the sad laugh.  “When I was little, my dad knew how to cook stuff in a microwave. And then an orphanage, and then college. My knowledge base is a bit skewed, Foggy.”

Red bell peppers? Perfect. “Fret not, my dear Matthew. Your cooking superhero has arrived. I’ll find us a recipe. Ooh! Hey, I should have a superhero name. How about Daredevilled Egg, amiright?” Something crashed in Matt’s apartment. “Woah, there. You ok?”

“Shit. Yeah, sorry. Dropped the bowl I made the glaze in. Stainless steel, no harm done.”

Foggy blew him a kiss, and then thought it might not have been heard. “I just blew you a kiss. Like ya do when a friend might have gotten hurt.” Damn. He had it bad.

Matt outright blushed. Hell yes. Oh magnificent. That called for an encore. “Daredevil, like the guy in Hell’s Kitchen?”

“Uh, yeah. You know about him, right?”

Matt’s mouth twitched. “Obviously. Since I live there.”

Foggy’s turn to drop something—but _he_ managed to save his grated carrots from an uncertain fate. “Wait, what? _I_ live in Hell’s Kitchen. We both live in the same corner of New York, New Yooooork?” Always could nail Frank Sinatra. His singing voice. Not his body. Foggy was being much more cautious of innuendo these days.

Matt looked fidgety. “Oh. Well. That’s interesting.”

“Dude!” Foggy chortled gleefully. “Do you realize what this means?”

“Well, yes—”

“It means that when the Avengers are doing something in our neighborhood we can complain together! It means I can make reference to obscure local spots and you’ll be all ‘oh, Josie’s, sure, I love Josie’s.’”

“We could cook together sometime,” Matt interrupted, softly, shyly.

Foggy’s upper body stilled, but he shifted his weight towards his heels and curled his toes. “Yeah,” he replied, dazed. “Yes. We should definitely do that.”

~***~

Matt had taken the job with Marianna. It was such a good offer, and _come on_ , Murdock. Karen called the new Mad Max movie “so _good_. Just. Explosive.” Father Lantom called a busy day “an absolute mob.” It was just a turn of phrase.

It was a good job. He _liked_ it. He defended a teenager who had been accused of murdering her next-door neighbor (self-defense), a supposed housebreaker (poor guy had the wrong window), and an alleged art forger (they were, ahem, framed). Nice people. Strong cases. Flaming liars, putting everything into hiding…something. Nothing he wasn’t used to, and in some ways, he didn’t care. He could think of things they might not want to tell him, and there was nothing in the information available to him that would unravel their claims. Didn’t want to talk about their assault/weed hookup/indie porn comics/apartment-rules-violating pet/AA meeting/secret datefriend? Might hurt the completeness of their case, and it was better not to risk having to speak on it for the first time in court, but also not _technically_ his business. So he nudged them, presented in court, and won and won and won. And then spent most of the following night, each time, patrolling as Daredevil so as to have something to do other than tossing in bed.

At the same time, though, he started keeping records of things he’d overheard, prickles on the back of his neck. He had a crime web in his apartment now. Strings and pushpins linking up braille-printed notes. Some were things Matt had wondered about. Others were things Daredevil had. Every day his fingers quirked some strings into different places, or added a note, or stabbed a pushpin through several pieces triumphantly.

So it was that the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen took down a joint effort between a teenage assassin, an internationally wanted cat burglar, and the East Coast underworld’s most celebrated forger.

The news ate it up. Not only was it… _glamourous_ , as crimes go, it was also outside of Daredevil’s usual sphere.

Matt, for his part, took Claire photographs of his former clients and sat unhappily while she compared them to the ones running in the papers. She stared carefully, and he noted the moment her breath flew out of her lungs. “Shit. I know you said they got charged under different names, but they changed their appearances, too. New haircuts, one beard grown and one shaved, switched around glasses, piercings, a neck tattoo. But they’re the same people.”

“I got played.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you did.” He could feel, from five feet away, how tight her throat had grown.

“They had official documents. They had entire fake lives. Everything in perfect order to be acquitted. And they all came to the law office of Vanessa Marianna, and they all were…encouraged…to work with me.”

Claire sighed heavily and went to her fridge for a glass of lemonade. “Got any ideas, Daredevil?”

“I think Marianna has a mob connection.”

Claire leaned her forehead against the door of the freezer and took a slow breath. “Known that for long?”

Matt, embarrassed and irrationally resentful, stayed silent. Anyway, he didn’t know it even now—only suspected.

“What are you going to do?”

He laughed then, longer and harder than was probably appropriate. Foggy had made his laugh come more readily than ever before, and he kept catching himself in surprise.

“I’m going to fix it, Claire. Don’t wait up.”

But of course she did.

~***~

The bombs went off that night.

Where was Daredevil? Racing against the clock to stop some part of it— _any_ part of it. But the law office was too far, and he only had his own two legs. Could Daredevil call a taxi? Ride the subway? Even if he could, his body armor didn’t have any freaking pockets to put his freaking wallet in.

He ended up outside the ruin of the first bomb site he could get to, frozen in plain sight, because the voice of Franklin “Foggy” “xXKittyHoneyXx” Nelson was urging people away from the surrounding buildings. “Listen, I don’t think the walls are stable! Here, cover your faces—don’t breathe in this dust!”

So at least he was right there when a chunk of wall knocked his crush out.

~***~

The first thing Foggy noticed as he came to was how soft the blanket someone had thrown over him was. Like, soft pillowy velvet potato nubbins as a blanket. Tater tots? Yeah, that sounded better. The tater tot of blankets. Ok, so he was somewhere warm and probably safe. He hurt kinda a lot, but that would probably pass. Eyes? Yeah, time to try looking around. Ok, wow. This living room looked like Matt’s? That was an understatement? And…oh holy fuck that kitchen.

With Daredevil in it.

Daredevil was in Matt Murdock’s apartment?

 _Foggy_ was in Matty’s apartment?

What the everloving?

Daredevil was, at the moment, presenting Foggy with an excellent view of his ass while making microwave pizza rolls. Which, incidentally, Foggy could totally respect. Crises always lead people to their special comforts. Pair those babies with some Fanta and finish with Klondike bars? Perfection.

Daredevil turned and awkwardly waved at Foggy. “How are you feeling?”

Foggy took inventory of his body parts. “Uh. Ouch? Could I maybe have aspirin and an ice pack?”

A nod. “Of course.” And Daredevil proceeded to display knowledge of exactly where Matt kept them, moving confidently to the freezer door’s top rack and then the upper cabinet to the right of the stove, lowest shelf, on the leftmost of a tidy row of bottles. In between, he snagged a glass from the cabinet to the left of the stove, and, once he had all the other components, filled it with ice water.

So that was interesting and Foggy was just _incredibly_ disappointed. “Gee, thanks, Daredevil,” he said and ohgodohgod that was so surreal? He was talking to a legit superhero-type person? The dude was easy to write off as a vigilante with silly horns, but now that he was standing _right there_? Straight-up superhero. Who had apparently carried Foggy’s unconscious body to this very couch for him to recover on. Um? Squee? Foggy’s inner child threatened to become his outer child.

On second thought, _straight_ -up was maybe not the best choice of words? Foggy could easily think of the people who were enough at ease with his own apartment to have a key (presumably) and know where to find dishes, pills, food, blankets, Band-Aids… Some friends, some family. But this degree of comfort with a space? Daredevil lived there, or practically. A boyfriend? Oh please no.

The man in red! leather! body armor! cleared his throat. “You seem tense. But I assure you you’re safe here.”

Foggy made a noncommittal sound. “Oh, sure. I feel very chill about being in Matthew Michael Murdock’s apartment.” Daredevil became very, very still. “Which appears to also be _your_ apartment, if I’m not mistaken.” A long pause. “That was a question. Are you willing to confirm or deny?”

A sharp exhale of breath. “Listen, Foggy, I’m not sure…I mean, do you really want to know the answer to that?”

“Dude, yeah. I gotta say, I am genuinely concerned about your activities and what they might mean for Matt. Are you putting him in danger? I know I’m a cuddly mild-mannered culinary genius lawyer, but do you bring just anybody here, or what? Also did you look through my wallet, or did Matt just show you what I look like? It was the sexy shutter shades photo, wasn’t it? C’mon, you can be honest with me.”

A stare. “Foggy,” Daredevil started, deliberate and confused, “who is it that you think I am?”

Foggy fiddled with the ice pack. “Matty’s boyfriend, or _possibly_ close friend-who-is-a-boy. I guess plain old roommates is a possibility, but I don’t know that you’d risk discovery unless there was a more personal bond going. So. Like. Are you dating him?”

And then Daredevil laughed.

So that was the cat out of the bag. Bat out of hell? Nah, that was way off. The luscious raspberry jam center spilling out of the lava cake.

Matt saw—no, noticed—that it had clicked, and knelt beside the couch. He slid his cowl off slowly, tried to speak, and laughed again, this time scarcely more than a puff of air against Foggy’s cheek. Foggy reached out and touched his face. “Hi, Foggy,” Matt said softly.

“Ok, so, I’m kinda freaked out right now? But I’m also aching and tired, so my verbal filters are shot to all hell, and I’m gonna say some stupid stuff.” Foggy cleared his throat. “I’m really, really glad you’re not dating someone else. I still want to make macaroni with you. And I am changing my Skype handle to Justiceicebaby, I only thought of it yesterday. But I also kinda judge you a lot for this whole getup dealio, mmkay?”

“That’s…fair?”

“Damn right it is. Now, you are going to hold my hand and explain what’s up with your presumed superpowers, what happened today, and the extent and nature of your feelings towards me. Because I need answers and I need them now, babe.”

~***~

Things Matt Murdock did not have:

  * Evidence to put Vanessa Marianna away.
  * Fanta
  * The law on his side
  * A job



Things Matt Murdock did have:

  * A plan
  * Klondike bars
  * Superpowers
  * Friends
  * A paper napkin with a sign drawn on it
  * A new boyfriend
  * The happiest laugh in Hell’s Kitchen



 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Karen! And Vanessa! I missed them. 
> 
> I have not actually used JAWS, but my experience with Skype has lead me to firmly believe Matt can experience glitches and misclicks such that accidental calls and such are entirely plausible, and could absolutely be Skype's fault.
> 
> Lyrics to "Peace Lovin' Man" are Dave Coverdale's.
> 
> Forever boy is, of course, after Avatar: The Last Airbender.
> 
> This fic is now going to be treated as complete until further notice. Thanks for joining us!

**Author's Note:**

> You can visit us on Tumblr! Because we are stylish. And you should, because we are ~delightful~
> 
> SpaceJackalope is cartograffiti.tumblr.com
> 
> Cumberground is beholdthebedlam.tumblr.com
> 
> ^-^


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